Twenty Six
by Apathetical
Summary: I was a single child in a sea of twenty six. -A-
1. Chapter 1

_I was just another letter, a single child in a sea of twenty six_

What makes a story?

What makes a tale one you want to hear?

Is it the sense of adventure, the intoxicating thrill of being apart of something so fantastical it could never really happen?

Or maybe it's the happy ending, when everyone is safe, cozy and warm?

It that's the case, maybe my story's not one you want to hear.

I never got that happy ending, and I wasn't the only one.

Almost 10 000* that year alone…

Before any of this happened, when I was still little enough to wholeheartedly believe in the goodness of people, back when my mum was still alive. Back then, I'd sit in this little nook against the wall, hidden by a bookshelf doing nothing but reading. I'd read of castles and fairies, princesses and the knights who would come to rescue them. I'd dream and play and hum and sing. I was six what else dose a six year old do?

For me the world was magical, everything that breathed was special and I was my own princess. In a way, that mentality continued on till the day I died…I refused to believe in my own impending death, even as all the evidence gathered at my feet. I should have been smarter, I was raised better. Raised to notice those things, the small insignificant things, maybe if I'd been paying better attention I could have prevented my parents death…

I was eight when it happened. Eight...much too young to loose everything I know. I remember it was Christmas morning every year my mum and dad would wake up early and decorate the entire house in candles and tinsel so when I woke up my entire world was shimmering and glistening. I loved it; every time it was my favorite Christmas gift. But when I awoke that year, something was wrong. The usual tinsel and lights were nowhere to be found. I wasn't worried, upset yes, but not worried. I walked down stairs telling myself maybe they just decided to decorate the living room this time, I was positive it would be amazing. From there my memory starts to fade getting hazier each passing second. Years of blocking out that particular day finally seem to have worked…just when I no longer want it to.

From what I learned after the fact, long after the fact, my parents weren't exactly lawful people. They loved me, of that no one would doubt. That didn't change the fact they were on the wrong side of the law. My parents were con artists. Everything I grew up having quite technically wasn't mine to have, it was someone else's. A last minute business meeting of my fathers went wrong; someone wanted money he just didn't have. One thing led to another, and before anyone knew it my dad was dead, strangled by his own tie, my mum was next she just walked in at the wrong time...

They found the boxes of Christmas decorations afterwards scattered around the house just waiting to be unpacked and used.

I've never liked Christmas since that day.

After a long and drawn out trial in which I was subject to more traumatizing experiences there came the problem of what to do with me. Up until then I'd been staying with a family friend, who legally was my guardian, but seeing as she neither had the money nor the means to take me on it was decided I would be placed into the hands of the government. Bloody government. Two years of my life I spent in a different home every few weeks. You had to learn to think fast and always be on your guard. Not all foster parents did it for the sense of charity.

But through a series of misfiling and paper work errors, both you and I have no hope to comprehend; I ended up in the care of a small orphanage just outside London. 'Lucky Children Orphanage' whatever was lucky about us I really don't know. The caretakers were nice, and the small amount of children there were kind to me even with my 'I'm leaving soon so let off' mentality. Sadly, or happily when you think about it, I never left and another year of my life was wasted trying to adjust to a stable living situation.

Back then there was only four other children around my age (and by around, I mean at least two year older or younger then me) despite my best efforts the five of us became inseparable. Looking back I think that was the best year of my life…

We had Dylan, last name unknown; his mum had abandoned him in a dump near her home. They never found his mother, and Dylan grew up to be a right jackass, even still he was a wonderful friend when the fancy took him.

Betsy Tyler was pretty much the baby of our group. Her dad used to hit her mum, until her mum took a cleaver to him that is. Betsy was four when it happened, she hid in the cupboard. She's afraid of knives now.

Elizabeth Bennett was the second eldest; her parents had a love of Jane Austin. They were on a skiing trip when an avalanche hit them. No one wanted an extra seven year old.

Adam was the last boy, eight years old when he came to the orphanage. No one was quite positive what happened to his parents. The police just found him one day sitting on the stairs leading to the Town Hall. He doesn't even remember having parents.

To much reminiscing is making me cynical I'm starting to forget what it was that made the five of us inseparable, maybe it was the shared fact that none of our families seemed to care enough to keep us around. Personally, I think we just clung to someone who understood and nature took it from there. Either way we ended up as the best of friends.

But as all things must eventually come to an end, so did our time at the 'Lucky Children Orphanage'. The place was already coming down, deemed unsafe and unfit we were shipped out into the world, the younger ones bound for foster care, us older children into yet another orphanage. I myself was on my way to Winchester. And I'm sure you can see what happens from here.

But I think I'll save the rest of my tale for another time, after all, you may not even want to hear the rest.

AN: So? What did you think of it! The next chapter will hopefully be up same time next week. Stay tuned! And don't forget to review, how am I supposed to improve if you don't inform me as to what's wrong!

* - Also, the number 10 000, is actually a rough estimate of those that died in 1975. based on estimates for children aged 15-25. It was the least depressing number; the suicide rate has been steadily rising since. Please if you or anyone you know is thinking about suicide, even merely thinking about it, that you'll seek help. In 2008 in Canada alone almost 24 000 people died by way of suicide.


	2. Chapter 2

So your back are you, back to hear the rest of my life. Well let me tell you, it only gets worse from here on.

Still staying?

Please, don't say I didn't warn you.

I have to tell you the truth, when I first leaned about Wammy's House I was ecstatic, a place where I could stay without fear of being removed or shipped away. I was beyond thrilled. Without a glance back at the life and the friends I was leaving behind I took off. Staggering into a new life, one I was both excited and nervous for. In retrospect, watching my life played out for me to see, heading to Wammy's House was one of my dumber ideas. And trust me I've had a lot of dumb ideas.

Leaving all my friends behind…

I think it wasn't till I reached the front door that I truly began to regret my choice. I missed my friends all of them, Dylan and Betsy, Elizabeth and Adam. I missed them all dearly, to much to be healthy.

The beginning of the end I suppose.

Now before I can continue there's some things you ought to know first, as I'm sure you're aware Wammy's House was built and maintained in order to replicate the worlds brightest mind. In other words they wanted a copy to succeed in case the original were to perish. L was what we were all vying to achieve, the coveted title akin to the Fifa world cup or an Olympic medal. L, the world's greatest detective, a title that up until recently was held by one L Lawliet, and yes that's his real name. Wammy's was a world filled with pressure, one where you were required to take an alias, better to think of it as a nickname I suppose.

But it wasn't until I arrived that I learned all or this, they've always been good at that. Hiding the truth from you I mean. Some children took an alias willingly, they mostly came from harsh abusive backgrounds. The rest of us, hated the thought of loosing our name, it was all we had when there was nothing else. Your name is who you are, and they took it away from me. I was forced into becoming A, the first copy, plan Alpha. I hated it.

Now don't get me wrong, I wasn't a horrible cynical, spoiled child upset at the world for forcing me into something. No it was in fact quite the opposite; the only thing I was truly mad about was loosing my name. MY name, Annabelle Elizabeth Kirtridge was the only connection I had to my parents. I acted out in retaliation. It was all for naught. Eventually I became the thing I hated most, the child called A. Even a rebellious spirit dies when pressured.

I disappeared into a sea of test scores and quizzes, IQ points and interviews. I was the top student, an achievement everyone else would have cheered at. I barley seemed to notice, far to wrapped up in my work to care. At that point, I think, I was already dead. Nothing could have brought me out of my trance, and it was only a matter or time till I found something I couldn't do, then I would crack.

But that didn't happen for quite some time still to come, not until one creepy little boy found me one afternoon.

I'll tell you this, I never met L. And aside from perhaps a few mentions, I doubt he even knew who I was, who any of us were. To L we were merely those that would succeed him nothing more. There were always the few who claimed to had met L, as time went on they became fewer and fewer. In a way I suppose we all knew what was happening, we all knew as much as some pretended, that if we died no one would care. Life would go on, we would be replaced.

So I suppose the goal wasn't to be L, but just merely needed, remembered. Irreplaceable.

For me, everything seemed worse then it really was, I wasn't that same little girl anymore. Even now I'm not sure what date it was, when B came and my fate solidified it's self into the shape it would forever take. I do remember some things; I was eleven when it happened, when I met him.

The library was always my favorite place in the world, so many books one could get lost (and usually did) I knew every nook and cranny, more often then not I would fall asleep amongst the tomes exhaustion catching up with me. During one of my late night study sessions, a little boy with black hair wandered into my sanctuary. Any child already at Wammy's knew the library was off limits after eight, it was an unwritten rule, none interrupted the number one child, no one dared upset me.

This little boy watched me for over an hour. It bugged me relentlessly, until finally I broke glaring at him and demanding to know what was so interesting. Can you guess what he said? Let me give you a tiny hint. B, the little boy with the black hair, can see your true name and life time. He can tell when you're going to die. Now can you see what he said?

"Annabelle Elizabeth Kirtridge, Four Years, ten days three minutes to live."

Then he smiled and walked away.

Really in retrospect it wasn't that big, any other child would have laughed and shrugged it off. Remember though, apart of my sanity was long gone and so B terrified me.

He really did. That small boy scared me, and whenever I saw him again he was always counting, his little mouth forming the words. He only got creepier with time, like he owned what little time I had left. It wasn't long till he never left me alone, always following down the hall like some deranged pet. Except, I suppose he wasn't the pet. I was.

"Three years left to go darling."

He was driving me insane

"Two year left to go sweetheart."

On more then on occasion I threatened to kill myself and end his little game, he only laughed and walked away, patronizing me. Him a child two years younger then me, patronizing ME like I was some infant,

I hated him.

"Oh my, only one year left my princess."

That last year, the year I died he stopped. Stopped following me stopped everything; I was alone again, blissfully alone. I revealed in it. And eventually came to forget the little boy that had followed me everywhere. That is until just after my fourteenth birthday.

Birthday wise, it was rather a rather uneventful one. I did get a laptop that year; I was absolutely thrilled with it, and quickly set about rearranging it to suit my personality. It was on one of those days almost twenty four hours before my suicide that I was rearranging my files and sorting documents that B snuck up on me. His arms snaked around my waist and held me firmly in place. I couldn't run. In a voice almost too quite for me to hear he murmured "Only twenty two hours left.." I told him to leave me alone or I was telling Watari, that the joke had in fact gone on for long enough, and I stormed off. In a state beyond upset I ran outside, I wanted to be alone, I wanted fresh air. I wanted a walk.

I was barley fourteen when I died.

In my anger I hadn't noticed the rocks; it didn't him me that the rain last night would have made everything slippery. I just didn't realize. One thing led to another and I took a head first dive into the stream. I drowned. No one heard me scream.

And the last thing I saw, was little B laughing as he watched me die.

* * *

_**AN:**_ _How did you like it? Let me know what you think please! Constructive criticism is definitely appreciated! What could have been added? What could have been taken away?_  
_As a quick note, the formatting didn't turn out exactly the way I expected..._


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